Host Amelia Phillips goes behind the scenes with Pleasant State co founder Ami Bateman and Meditation teacher Jacqui Lewis, giving an insight into each episode, what went well, what didn’t and helps us get to know the guests a little better.
About the guest:
Jacqui Lewis is a highly respected, well known, meditation teacher, writer, educator, speaker and co founder of The Broad Place, a platform for Modern Meditation and Mental Clarity. She leads individual, group and corporate workshops around Australia and globally both online and in person. She has written multiple books and has just published her latest creation: the 14 day mind cleanse.
Below is an unedited transcript of the podcast episode:
Welcome to another episode of Behind My Show, where you get to know my recent guests that little bit better and learn what went on behind the scenes this month on Healthy Her. I got to speak to two highly accomplished women. Jackie Lewis on her 14 Day Mind Cleanse and Amy Bateman on EDCs or endocrine disrupting chemicals in our everyday products and how we can reduce our exposure to edc.
Now, if you’ve been listening to me for a while, you’ll know that I am a failed meditator , and I really wanna do it, but I just keep starting and stopping and failing. So I’m actually often quite reluctant to get meditation teachers on to tell me how all my stress that I’m feeling is because I don’t meditate, even though they’re probably somewhat right.
However, Jackie Lewis was an absolute delight to have on my show. I love her book, The 14 Day Mind Cleanse. So there’s probably a reason she travels the globe and has a cult following. I’m actually seriously considering going to one of her retreats, so I don’t know if any of you would like to come with me because I need support
Anyway, she’s written multiple books and she’s just published this latest creation, the 14 Day Mind Cleanse, which immediately spoke to me because I love practical, actionable messages with that rich, deeper meaning behind. So it was great to interview her and hear a fast few just to get to know her that little bit better.
Jackie, tell me, how did you get into the meditation and mental clarity space? I got into it initially through my own experience of really bad anxiety and a sense of feeling incredibly overwhelmed at most times, throughout every day. And so I was 18 and that was my sort of first entry point into it in a really serious way.
Awesome. And so you’ve been pretty much living and breathing this your entire life, and I’ve read before that you actually remember meditating as a four and a five year old as well, not realizing you were, but you have a strong memory of that, which is incredible. Yeah, I really do. My little brother was born disabled when I was three, and I, I mean, the only thing I can gather is I think it was really a coping mechanism.
I mean, I, I don’t know where I learned it from, but I would sit quietly close my eyes and the hospitals are really noisy environments and I would bring my attention inside my body and then I’d feel really, really calm. I’ve also got adhd, so , I was like quite a wild, intense little kid and still continue to be as an adult.
They’re the best ones. We’ve all got one of those. I think I got two of those actually. There’s so many amazing facets to it. I think though, for the meditation was something that, interestingly I was, something I was nervous about in the beginning. I thought it would numb and dumb me down. You know, I was like, I don’t wanna be calm.
You know, like one, that’s really, and I’m just not that pleasant. And it’s actually the most key thing about meditation is it really brings out the best qualities in you in the best possible way. And that’s something that I really wanna impress upon people if I can, because I get that a lot. I’m gonna lose my edge at work if I meditate.
I’m like, No, you’ll gain an edge you know that you don’t even know is there yet. Really great. Meditation isn’t actually about faking it and being a monk and walking around saying numb, stay to people. It’s truly about being the most vibrant, creative, incredible expression of yourself that you can be. I love that.
Talk me through a day in the life of Jackie Lewis. What time do you wake up in the morning? I normally wake up anywhere between five and six. Okay. And what happens when you first wake up? Okay. I really don’t even have a single day of the week but’s similar to another one based on the work that I do. So meditation, obviously
And how long do you meditate for? It depends on the practice that I’m doing, um, but generally between 20 to 45. Um, in the mornings and usually 20 to 30 minutes in the afternoon. So I’m doing twice daily practice, which I honestly, if someone had told me that I’d be doing that when I first started, I’d be like, as if, I just didn’t think it was possible.
So meditation always makes it up. Spending some time in nature, I always try to read something really inspiring, so I’m careful in the mornings in particular of making sure that I’ve got these foundations set up before I get on my. Because once I’ve gotten on my device, I find them really addictive. Yeah.
You’ve got the external factors really starting to bang at the door, so you really wanna have that morning ritual set out. Yeah, like a little runway of time. That’s just for me without I, before I’ve invited the outside world in. And then again, it depends on, you know, school drop off and a whole bunch of things.
But I’ll do usually yoga or some sort of, In five to six days a week, I will spend some time in our garden. We have an acre with lots of fruit trees and so forth. So there’s usually something demanding that needs to be done there. I’m on multiple time zones throughout the world, so I work with students everywhere.
So I’m, I’m in front of my computer now with Covid a lot. It used to be that I was on a plane traveling five months of the year, but now I’m working with people all over the. Oh wow, you, I didn’t realize that your business was as global as that. Yeah, we used to teach between India, London, New York, la across Asia, and all around Australia, up and down the East Coast five months of the year.
So it was intense. But yeah, since Covid obviously derailed everything for everyone, and now I’m mostly online and I’m online in really weird hours, so I do meditation teacher training, so I’ve got all my teachers in training all around the world. I. Mentor a lot of people. So from stay at home parents all the way through to CEOs.
I’m working on writing. I teach meditation. I’m not gonna call it a newsletter, but your weekly letter that you send out that I’m on your database is so beautiful and I encourage, I wouldn’t normally encourage people to get more emails, but these really beautiful intention led messages, they’re so well written and I figured that must take a long time to write those each week, and there’s a lot of wisdom behind those message.
Yeah, it’s been the most incredible discipline. So I’ve been, I mean, in the beginning I was writing them daily. I did that for three years, wrote one every single day for three years, and then I drop back five days a week, and now I’m down to three times a week. But they keep me inspired and on track because I have to research them quite well.
But again, like there’s, I don’t have the special, you know, sometimes I’m, you know, writing them on my phone notes or I’ll see like, I’m constantly like making notes of like quotes and things. Things that I want to dive into a little bit more deeply within the letter. So it’s a beautiful discipline to have, I think.
I feel like I get more out of it than the readers. And so your afternoon, evening, bedtime, what’s that look like? Oh my goodness. So I start to flag . I know I’ll stick. 37, I get a lot of energy, and by 6 37, I’m usually on the tail end of that in the fetal position. went to bed at eight o’clock last night and was asleep by eight 30, so I normally, like by 9, 9 30 at the latest, I’m in bed.
I need good quality sleep to function. It’s something I didn’t honor for a long time. So, Yeah. A TV series that you’re into at the moment? Mm. I’ve recently completed the last season of Ozark and I was a bit of a late comer. My, again, my teenager was like, Ugh, lame mom, cuz I was late to euphoria. But I basically finished euphoria, uh, both of which were brilliant and harrowing.
Okay. All right, great. I’ll pop those on the list. What about a book that you love? I have so many books that I read. Can I do top three? Uh, top three. Go for it. Rattle them off. What? For mothers in the modern world. I think Deborah Levy, her non-fictional book, she’s done The Cost of Living. There’s three.
There’s a three part series Real Estate. She talks about parenting and trying to be a creative and trying to fulfill yourself as a woman in the most distill, like really pragmatic. It feels like you’re having a conversation with her. I love her writing. I think she wants it by Jill Soloway. These are the ones I’m always recommending to women.
She Wants it by Jill Soloway’s, a couple of years old now. Unreal. And the other one that I would really recommend is the Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer, again as a woman. And she’s a creative as well, really reframed for me how I’m incredibly good at giving help, but was terrible at asking for help and asking for anything.
I mean, she’s remarkable woman, incredibly intense. But she maps out, you know, like, why do we get here? Why are we not asking for help and what can we do about it? And it just, it’s such a powerful book. So it would be my favorites that I’d re. I love them. And then just to wrap up, what’s on repeat on your music playlist?
Okay, so a song that I’m loving at the moment, and this is like, it’s more of a a woo woo kind of song that is beautiful. Calling Home by Anne McDonald. It’s a really powerful. Spooky beautiful track that I’m obsessed with listening to, so I found it really calming. That’s a beautiful, beautiful track that I’m listening to a lot at the moment.
Aside from that, I listen to a lot of house music and dance music, . I love it. I love it. A Calling Home by Anne McDonald. I’m absolutely getting that up on my Spotify list as soon as we wrap up. That sounds beautiful. Thank you so much, Jackie. Red pleasure.
Amy Bateman is one smart cookie. She and her business partner Sean, have launched Pleasant State, which is non-toxic, zero waste dissolvable cleaning products. And I was keen to get her take on the impact of EDCs and toxic load in our home. Now, I could tell right from the outset that Amy and her business partner Sean, had put the work into setting this brand up for success.
Her MBA and corporate experience really shined through in her brand and of course how she came armed with fascinating insights on the impact of EDCs and how we can reduce them. It really was a fascinating. The fact that Amy won the Sunshine Coast Sustainable Businesswoman of the Year Award and Pleasant State won the Sunshine Coast Small Business of the Year showed that she and Sean are really onto something.
Here’s a fast few I did with Amy
Altima.
Amy, your top cleaning hack that you swear by using the pleasant state tub Scrub on stainless steel. It makes it so shiny. Oh, good one. And you know what? I saw you give another one on your amazing Instagram account, which is just so good. And oh my goodness, why have I not thought about this? Is putting the cloth in the dish.
Yeah, I saw Sean do that. My business partner, At first I was like, Did she make a mistake? But turns out like, you can actually do that. It was, it’s very clever, Mind blown listeners. Have you guys been doing this for a while? Amy and I are the only ones that hadn’t thought of that. Such a great idea. What about a TV series that you’re into at the moment?
Oh, this is embarrassing, but I’m really into reality tv. I love it when a highly intelligent, highly articulate, ambitious business woman dumps on me her dirty little reality secrets. Tell me, I’m Kardashians, I have to say. And Byron Bayes all the way. What were yours? I did do Byron Bayes. That was illuminating
I you just my brain off like I, I just have to find things to turn it off. I watched Glow up on Netflix. They’re makeup artists. Each week they have to compete and either do makeup on themselves or others, and they’re, they’re like artists. It’s incredible what they make. Okay. Good. Gl. I like that. A book that you love, The Little Prince.
It’s just very endearing. I love the illustrations. Is this as in the children’s book? The Little Princes? Yes. Oh, I have a good friend from my prior time in corporate Australia, and as I left, she gave me that book and through early night, again, it’s. Something I might do if I need to switch my brain off and be a little less serious.
What about a song on repeat, on your playlist, Starboy by the weekend? I don’t know why, but it helps like ramp me up and make me feel like I can achieve things. Ah, the weekend just. Do the best tracks. I’ve got so many. I, I can’t think of Starboy. It would probably know it, but I’ll have to, uh, I’ll pop it in the show notes, guys, so you can get ramped up.
Like Amy. I’m definitely not gonna share the lyrics to that. Okay. . Okay. Maybe not for little ears, adults only. And what about the pit and the peak of having a for-purpose business? We’re able to really measure the impact that we’re making both directly on the planet by eliminating plastic. Also improving people’s homes and health.
And we track that and share that with customers. And that’s just really amazing knowing that people who just started with this small idea are actually making big impact and continue to do that. And we were recognized, we actually won the Trans Tasman Growth and Innovation Award Ah, amazing. The other week.
And that was presented by both. The Australian Prime Minister and the New Zealand Prime Minister. Oh, I saw that you were next to Jain. Aden and Ade Albanese. Oh my gosh. Like what a moment for you guys. Yes. And I love, I saw on your inta how you, uh, publicly sharing your be ags, your big hair audacious goals of where you are halfway through the year.
And then I’m assuming you’ll keep tracking that. It makes us all feel like we’re along for the. And part of the journey, which is really exciting. Yeah, and we have a platform where you can actually track your own impact in real time. So you can have a look at through your purchasing decisions, how much plastic you’ve save.
How much tox and free cleaning you’ve generated and your personal contributions to charity, and that rolls up to our total contribution. And again, that that’s all made available to you in real time. So that’s amazing. And yeah, I guess the down times there are many. Um, definitely. But the thing that makes me most unhappy is if I, We’ve got an unhappy customer, which is really rare, thankfully.
But of course you’re always gonna have unhappy customers as your business grows. You’re shipping product, you’re shipping glass product, you’ve got different expectations. If there’s a minor thing around the product and it’s not quite performing, cuz again, I’m a perfectionist. I want everyone to be happy.
Our customers, it rarely does happen cuz we have built an amazing product. But just cuz I love our customers and I love making them happy, that will often make me unhappy. If they’re not you shoulder that load, well look with, with a business owner with that attitude, I think that you’ll find the majority of your customers will be a hundred percent on board and satisfy.
We’ll keep up the great work. Amy. You’re doing a great job with Pleasant State and we’re all very appreciative. Thank you so.
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